ph problem/emergency

[lumpcore]

just fed my plants - one is three weeks into flower and the the other three are vegging till they are bigger. when i tested their ph after just giving them plain water, they were all in the 6.2 - 6.4 range. once i nute them, they plummet to 4 or lower. and the one in flower doesn't look too good. these are in soil, btw. If i get some ph up or whatever it's called, will that make the soil ph to high after awhile?

 

[4u2sm0ke]

No it wont..go get some PH up and down..Allways PH adjust water and feedings to the proper level...My PH drops when mixing nutrients and needs to be braught up...I bubble my mixes for a few days as Im adjusting..after I get it to 6.5(Im soil too)...then I give to me girls.....May I sugest some cal/mag when ya get the PH bottles...Im thinking your girl is needing some...hope this helps

take care and be safe:bolt::bong:

 

[lumpcore]

okay, thanks - i almost dropped my coffee when i saw the 3.8 reading.

 

[stevetberry]

I am hydro but I would think that you should flush with ph'd water until you get a runoff of 6.5 and then feed them. JMO.

 

[4u2sm0ke]

I dont bother with run off myself..I just make sure everything going in is Ballanced:aok:

 

[Wetdog]

Dolomite Lime FTW

I haven't checked runoff OR what's going in for a couple of years now. No need.

Wet

 

[lumpcore]

my local hydro store is closed till monday. should i just let them be till then? i did add garden lime to the soil, and i added some more this morning, but after testing them again, the ph is still super low. should i foliar feed them? i have epsom salts, black strap molasses and a variety of earth juice products - meta k, catalyst, hygrozyme - will any of these help bring the ph up without adding to the problem?

 

[ozzydiodude]

IMO desolving some of the gardem lime in water would be your best way to go.

 

[Hushpuppy]

I agree with Ozzy, disolving the lime in water or putting it on top and watering it in good should help. I suspect that you have too much nitrogen as certain chemicals like nitrogen will make the soil very acidic which lowers PH. the lime is alkaline so it will ballance the acidity of the N. Your soil may be a little hot. I wouldn't add any moalsses as that is also acidic and is a food for the microbes and will supercharge them to work to break down more chems in the soil and complicate the issue. Try to keep your water going in more alkaline so that it will offset the acidity. If I had a PH issue in my soil(I am in hydro) I would continue to test runoff until the ph wasn't an issue anymore, then just check perodically to make sure it is staying good. As the soil guys said, if you start out with PH ballanced water and you know that your soil is ballanced then you will not have to test the runoff as much if any. JMO

 

[lumpcore]

i've been doing the dissolved garden lime in water thing now since saturday, and it looks like the ph is creeping up a little, but it's still poisonously low - the plant in flower actually looks like it's in pain.

 

[lumpcore]

it sounds like i shouldn't feed them till the ph comes up...?

 

[Hushpuppy]

Yeah I wouldn't feed them again until the ph comes up. It will not help to have extra nutes in the soil if the PH is that far off as the plants can't absorb it. How much are you feeding them? Are the leaves turning or burning?

 

[ozzydiodude]

:yeahthat:

 

[lumpcore]

They are turning. and the stems are dark purple. and curving downward (on the one in flower. the cheeses in veg just don't look happy)

I'm following this schedule for earth juice, which i found in the indoor section of this site:

FINAL EARTH JUICE SCHEDULE:

----------Cat-----------Micro---------Grow---------Bloom--------Hi-Brix--------Hygrozyme

1veg------5ml----------5ml------------5ml
2veg------5ml---------5ml------------5ml
3veg------5ml---------5ml-------------5ml----------------------5ml-------------2.5ml
4veg------7.5ml--------5ml------------7.5ml----------------------5ml-------------2.5ml
5flwr------10ml---------5ml------------7.5ml---------5ml-----------5ml-------------2.5ml
6flwr------10ml---------5ml------------10ml--------10ml-----------5ml-------------5.0ml
7flwr------10ml---------5ml------------10ml--------10ml-----------10ml------------5.0ml
8flwr------5.0ml--------5ml------------10ml---------15ml----------10ml------------7.5 ml
9flwr------5.0ml--------5ml------------10+ml--------20ml----------10ml------------5ml
10flwr------------------5ml------------10+ml------20-25ml---------10ml------------2.5ml
11flwr------------------5ml------------------------20ml------------10ml
12flwr-------------FLUSH


Repeat week 3 for veg or 10 for flower extension

the plant in flower just got the week 7 feeding and the 3 in veg are getting the week three (until early feb). i did up the amount of grow, because they were yellowing.

i've been having cold issues in the grow space, which is why this got so bad, by the time the temps were fixed and the plants still hadn't gotten better, two weeks passed and that's when i finally looked at the ph.

when the ph does finally go up (it's going really really slowly - is there any way to speed it up - making the trip to the hydro store today) will the sudden availability of all the nutes left in the soil burn the plants?

 

[lumpcore]

strangely, my camera is making this poor girl look better than she does in person. The first photo is just before flower, when all was good. the next three are from this morning - sorry the light is so bad.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Do not be a slave to a nutrient schedule. NO one schedule is right for every strain. Feed your plants what they need, not what some bottle says they need. Nute schedules should only be used as guidelines.

Your grow space being too cold is also going to cause problems. If you are getting purple and shouldn't be, your plants are suffering.

You keep talking about your pH being off, but I am not understanding where you are checking it and what you are using to check it? Are you actually checking the soil? If you are using one of those little soil pH probes, they are useless--well worse than useless.

 

[ozzydiodude]

From looking at those pics IMO I would go ahead and FLUSH the soil with plain wate PH'ed to 6.5. to 7.0. Use at least 3 times the ammount of water as you buckets are if they are 5 gal then use 15 gal od the PH'ed water it looks like to me their is lock out of the nutes going on So IMO FLUSHING is you best bet

 

[lumpcore]

Its one of the fat soil probes - i can't find the specific one on line - i got it years ago. It isn't one of the long thin cheap ones. I'm going out today to get one of the run off testing kits.

 

[Classic]

FINAL EARTH JUICE SCHEDULE:

i've been having cold issues in the grow space, which is why this got so bad, by the time the temps were fixed and the plants still hadn't gotten better, two weeks passed and that's when i finally looked at the ph.

I've been using Earth Juice for 6 months or so. Mix it up a couple of days ahead of time and aerate. If it's warm enough, the pH will rise. I've noticed that the pH is below 4 when first mixed but I've had it go as high as 8 after a couple of day.

FWIW, my current grow looks similar to yours. I've been flowering for 10 wks now so some yellowing is to be expected but it's worse than it should be. Buds aren't huge either.

My grow is in an outdoor shed so I pretty much live with the temps. I run lights at night and hope for the best in the day time. We haven't had any real cold weather but temps are lower than I'd like. I'm pretty sure EJ isn't my problem as I always premix and adjust if needed on the pH.

 

[HemperFi]

Well, take this for what it's worth, but I do not believe you should flush -- I believe you have been way over watering, your roots are swelled up like fingers in a hot tub and they are unable to absorbe the nutes.

I wouldn't do anything with that plant until the soil was almost dry -- then feed it regular flower nutes... JMO

Good luck